Album of the year rumblings

From outside the secure gates of Never Learned to Swim, other publications are readying their year-end coverage. Pitchfork launched full force with features with the year's great photos:
(http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47277-staff-list-the-year-in-photos)
as well as beginning a news round-up today:
(http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47433-the-year-in-news-part-1)

Album and song lists should pop up on said site within a few short days. One imagines that the classically Radiohead-fawning guys and gals over there will pick In Rainbows, but they seem to have a penchant for picking relative long shots for AOTY (The Knife - Silent Shout and The Rapture - Echoes in years previous).

Metacritic should begin their round-up of critics' lists for album of the year, as well as running their own aggregate stats, currently running:
1. Burial - Untrue
2. The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
3. Radiohead - In Rainbows
4. Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
5. LCD Soundsystem - 45:33
6. Robert Plant and Alison Krause - Raising Sand
7. Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
8. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
9. Patty Griffin - Children Running Through
10. MIA - Kala

(http://www.metacritic.com/music/bests/2007.shtml)

PASTE are claiming that Boxer is the best album this year, without qualification. In fact, they've ranked In Rainbows a good measure farther down.

1. The National - Boxer
2. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
3. Bruce Springsteen - Magic
4. White Stripes - Icky Thump
5. Feist - The Reminder
6. MIA - Kala
7. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
8. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
10. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Here's their complete list, courtesy of Stereogum:
(http://www.stereogum.com/archives/paste-picks-boxer-as-years-1.html)
One wonders what kind of crack they're smoking to have put Ryan Adams, Amy Winehouse, and Wilco in the top 25.

Now-defunct Stylus offered the first list this year already (thanks, Stereogum):
(http://www.stereogum.com/archives/stylus-says-goodbye-but-not-before-giving-us-the-f.html)

1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
2. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex Girlfriend
3. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
4. Lil Wayne - Da Drought 3
5. The National - Boxer
6. Kanye West - Graduation
7. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
8. MIA - Kala
9. The Field - From Here We Go to Sublime
10. Radiohead - In Rainbows

We're big fans of Weezy F here at NLtS, kudos to Stylus for an imaginative list. And you already know our thoughts on this year's releases:

1. Radiohead - In Rainbows
2. Okkervil River - The Stage Names
2. The National - Boxer
4. Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
5. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
6. Sea Wolf - Leaves in the River
7. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
8. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City
9. White Stripes - Icky Thump
10. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

(http://neverlearned.blogspot.com/2007/11/top-albums-of-2007-5-1.html)

We'll let the reader decide. As they say, the truth will out. Stay tuned for our continuing coverage at year's end along with our standard content.